M.L. Schultze is an award-winning journalist with nearly four decades of service to Northeast Ohio, including 25 years at The Repository in Canton where she was managing editor for nearly a decade. For the past 11 years, Schultze was a tireless driving force in the WKSU newsroom, first as news director and then as digital editor, before her retirement in mid-2018. As a news analyst, she has been heard on NPR and C-SPAN and programs including Here and Now, The Takeaway and Ideas, WVIZ ideastream’s weekly reporter roundtable (where she continues to offer her insights).
Along with her leadership roles at WKSU, Schultze was a keystone of the station’s reporting staff, reflecting her dedication to telling the stories of everyday people in Canton and Akron. She remains innately curious (an important trait for a journalist), just as she was when she created award-winning stories around a car auction she happened upon and a Canton chemical explosion that kept her holed up at the Civic Center after her neighborhood was evacuated (luckily, WKSU’s bureau in Canton was nearby).
A political reporting pro, Schultze was part of a local/national reporting team with NPR covering the 2016 elections. She has been named Best Reporter in Ohio by Ohio Associated Press Media Editors (OAPME) and Ohio Chapters of Society of Professional Journalists. Her work includes ongoing reporting on community-police relations; immigration (with a strong focus on Akron’s growing Bhutanese community); Ohio’s shale fracking industry; and extensive state, local and national political coverage. She’s also past president of OAPME and the Akron Press Club.
A native of Philadelphia, Pa., Schultze graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in magazine journalism and political science. She lives in Canton with her husband, Rick Senften, the retired special projects editor at The Rep and now a specialist working with kids involved in the juvenile courts. Their daughter, Gwen, lives and works in the Washington, D.C.-area with her husband and two sons. Son Christopher is a glassblower and welder living and working in Stark County.